


Letting Go

by AZFell_Ineffable



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angels are assholes, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Comforts Aziraphale (Good Omens), Heaven Is Cold, M/M, Past Abuse, References to Depression, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Taking A Ride On The Angst Train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AZFell_Ineffable/pseuds/AZFell_Ineffable
Summary: An exploration of how Aziraphale might see himself in the context of his relationships with Heaven and Crowley, and how Crowley reacts when he finds out.Inspired by the writing style of racketghost's Strange Moon series, which I currently hold in the highest esteem because of how effing BEAUTIFUL it is. Trying to break some writing rules to create something special - hope I succeeded!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 169





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sleight of Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750544) by [racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/pseuds/racketghost). 



There is a certain intoxication in letting go. 

Close your eyes, lift your arms and fall back, rely on the person behind you to support your weight.  


Feel the sensation of suresteady hands at your back, around your arms, under your shoulders, anchoring you, pinning you to them, a balloon string tied tightly to your floating form. 

Of course, this implies that you have someone you trust implicitly to do that for you, and that you can count on said person to bear your weight with ease as they push you back to your feet, or lower you gently to the floor. This also implies that this person is worthy of this trust, has proven again and again that their hands will not shake when they hold you. They will cup around you with gentlestrength and steady patience, with the knowledge of how to curl their fingers around you to keep you safe without hurting you themselves, borne from the experience of doing so countless times. 

Most people never find that person and learn how to fall on their own, rolling swiftly aside or with palms out to break their fall so that they injure as little of themselves as possible. They learn that they are too much person to trust themselves with someone who may not always be there, who will make excuses that feel cheaply made and clumsy, who will not be strong, soft or steady enough, or who will not know their own strength enough. 

Aziraphale is an angel, specifically a Cherub-demoted-to-Principality. He has been created as a warrior and a protector, humanity’s only burningblade safety net. Forged in God’s holy power, Aziraphale has been the one to guard humanity, has always picked them up when they have fallen, caught them when they stumbled and cradled them when they need comfort, no matter what his superiors in Heaven have said or thought. Aziraphale has soaked up humanity’s pain and suffering, sponging away their blood and pain with the steady hands of an army medic and the softness of a priest. He has crafted his corporation to imply soft strength and accessibility, someone that anyone can rely on for aid. But Aziraphale is only one angel. And he has been present on Earth, with humans, since their creation. He may be able to fend off the fatigue to the point that he does not sleep, so that he is always ready to protect, but even he needs saving, even from his own need to defend and protect humanity from itself. 

Enter a demon who has also been on Earth for six thousand years. 

Crowley. His North Star, his knight in shining armour, his tether to Earth. 

Crowley is the only other supernatural being on Earth who has not only grown accustomed to humanity, but has learned to love it and trust that they can make their own way in the world, in the way a good parent knows their adult child. 

Crowley has always been a good parent, no matter how much he denies it. 

Aziraphale’s job is to save people. Crowley, in both rebelling and obeying the tenets of his job, teaches people how to save themselves. He provides information, options and possible consequences, and then stands back to watch humanity push itself to stand, balance on its bicycle, learn how to work a stick shift. 

More importantly, for all Aziraphale’s intelligence, and no one can deny this about the angel (not even the Archangel fucking Gabriel, the wanker), Crowley is always quicker on the uptake. 

Aziraphale is a sponge, but Crowley is a computer, processing information and making decisions based on split second conclusions. He’s had to become one to keep himself safe from the angels who would smite first and ask questions never, and the other demons who would ask questions first and torture anyways. Not to mention that Aziraphale has proven time and time again how unreliable he is in catching Crowley when his demon counterpart and companion has needed it. 

The most reliable thing about Aziraphale is that he is a coward. He has refused to fight in every war he has been alive for, except for the very first, which had caused the Fall of ten million of his fellow angels. He gave away his flaming sword and it was a relief to have an excuse not to fight. He even lied to God, running away metaphorically from his own truth. He has always left Crowley holding the bag, so to speak, with regards to their Arrangement, leaving Crowley to pretend to be a spy or a tempter, depending on the need of the day. When Crowley had asked for Holy Water, Aziraphale walked away from that Arrangement, too afraid to trust Crowley with his own safety, though the demon had proved to be more than capable of looking after himself and Aziraphale with an effortless finger snap and a smirk on his handsome face. Aziraphale had stayed away because he was afraid of his feelings for Crowley, had thrown himself into being a medic or a spy in multiple human wars to avoid fighting again. He helps humanity because he cannot bear the alternative, which is to hurt them. Heaven is black and white thinking, all or nothing, and angels have been built the same way. He can only help or hurt, and he knows he cannot live with himself if he intentionally hurts. He is afraid, all the time.

The bravest thing Aziraphale has ever done, in his opinion, was fill a thermos with Holy Water and gift it to Crowley, with a whispered prayer that the demon would not leave him behind, no matter how much he deserved it. The bravest thing Aziraphale has ever done is share his Faith in God, with a capital F, with a demon. Not that it should have felt brave, not when Crowley has proven over and over again that he will always be Aziraphale’s parachute, the rock upon which Aziraphale has built himself up. 

Aziraphale only knows how to believe in himself when he returns to Earth without a body because Crowley has always believed in him. He has known this, but has never known what to do with that knowledge. After all, the last person who trusted him with any task without oversight was God Herself, and he not only failed his task, but he lied to Her face about it. 

Since then, though Gabriel and all the other Archangels have never heard of his conversation with Her, they have done nothing but make him feel as though everything bad that ever happened to humanity was because he either made a mistake in his guidance or because he had not been adequate enough in stopping Crowley from corrupting humanity. Gabriel has always criticized Aziraphale for not being enough of a fighter, for being too fat, for being too soft. 

When Aziraphale reported to Sandalphon, Michael and Uriel, his supervisors having changed multiple times in his lifetime, all of them told him he “thought” too much and accused him of considering humanity’s wellbeing as more important than God’s Divine Plan. It never seemed to occur to them that humanity’s wellbeing was part of the Divine Plan, let alone the Ineffable Plan. 

Each and every time he was caught going over his miracle quota or being gluttonous, Sandalphon had been more than happy to administer “God’s Will”, his fun little nickname for a special knout that had been forged in Hellfire, to any part of Aziraphale that the knout could reach. Aziraphale also had his powers bound during his healing process to that he could not heal himself with any miracles. He had been forced to hide himself from Crowley while he healed. The Archangels had intended for him to use that time in contemplation over his many failures and in the knowledge that he could not use his miracles to help anyone else either. 

He had taken up journaling several decades before it became incredibly popular. Like many people who wrote in journals, he often went months or years without writing anything down. He was terrified that someone, be it Gabriel or Crowley, would stumble upon it and realize what a coward he always felt like. How he wished he could be more than what he was, less intense, and just be able to fit into the boxes that everyone expected him to fill, but only until it was “just right”. He had begun journaling as a way to cope with the emotional pain that welled inside him after every single administering of “God’s Will”, and the overwhelming feelings of inadequacy he’d had since he gave away his flaming sword.  


He blinks and looks down at the yellowing pages of the leather journal. His hands are spattered with fountain pen ink, and he has written so much, in a much untidier scrawl than he thought he was capable of. He reads what he has written.

_How is it that I can wield a flaming sword, stand up to our former administrations and lie to the Almighty, knowing full well that She must know I was lying, but the thought of telling you three simple words makes me shake with pure terror?_

_Is it because the words themselves are simple, but they carry a weight heavier than the one Atlas carried? Is it because I am so afraid that your response will be the same ridicule I have seen in the faces of those I once reported to, though logically, I know full well this would never happen?_

_Because you are kind. No matter how many walls you shove me into, how many times you have told me to shut up or how many times we remind each other that you are Fallen, you are the kindest person I have ever known. You have held onto your kindness with gentle hands that could not be broken into submission. Meanwhile, I stand on the sidelines, hands tied behind my back with the fear of a little corporal punishment. Isn’t it silly? Aren’t I silly? An angel, afraid!_

_But I digress._

_My feelings must not be reciprocated, not in the same way. We care for each other, which could not be more apparent given that we were both willing to brave execution for each other. I believe you may even believe that you love me. But I do not love you in the same way you do._

_Kindly._

_Selflessly._

_In a way that tells me I am deeply cherished._

_Make no mistake; I do love you, with everything that I am capable of._

_But my love is not kind._

_My love is cruel. It is selfish. And it has hoarded its sweetness the way a miser hoards his wealth._

_I have brought you nothing but grief. Am I only capable of cherishing things, like my books? You are worth all of them and more._

_I can be nothing for you but continued pain._

_I am so afraid that you will come to know all of me, and you will hate what you find._

_The scars from “God’s Will”._

_The war wound that had been caused by my involvement in casting out the Fallen. That could very well have been from casting you down into Hell._

_The lies._

_The fear._

_The shame._

_The self-loathing._

_The filthy desire to possess and be possessed._

_I cannot bear your scorn._

_I cannot bear your hate._

_I cannot bear the thought that you have loved someone who has loved you with careless hands, who knowingly smashed your beautiful heart to pieces and would do so again if it meant getting the hair’s width of a possibility that you would still be alive._

_I cannot trust myself to sleep. I tried once, I never told you. I reported it back to Head Office as an experiment to find the best way to influence humanity in their dreams. I reported that it had been too chaotic, and that it would be better if I stayed away from the dream realm._

_The truth is that I dreamed of you. I dreamed of your touch, your kisses, and I yearned for it, more than I have ever wanted anything. But I also dreamed of your face, dissolving into nothing as Holy Water was poured over your head, by an army of angels who smiled all the while and ignored my screams until Gabriel turned to me and told me that though I had failed, as I do everything, the other angels had been able to use my reports to find and destroy you for good. I woke up in a panic, screaming myself hoarse. It seems that I can only be successful as a means to destroy anyone and anything I love._

_I deafened several households in the neighbourhood and had to perform several miracles to heal them all. When I explained why to Head Office, “God’s Will” was used on my corporation so much that a couple of ribs had cracked. Gabriel was kind enough to heal the ribs, but not the rest to learn my lesson. I definitely learned it before their punishment. I cried more than I ever have that day, not from the pain, but in bitterness. I could not bring myself to voice the Question, and my mouth was filled with its smokeash taste. You know the one, my love. The one that you Fell for asking._

_My God, have you forsaken me?_

_I am not a Good angel or a good angel. I would make a most incompetent demon. Most humans would abandon any human friend who left so much pain in their wake. I am the cause of so much hurt, and I have brought ruin to whomever I care for. I would never be able to live with myself if I ever hurt you, my dearest C–. It would kill me._

Aziraphale blinks and sees drops of some clear liquid on the page. How odd. He raises a hand to his cheeks and realizes that he has been crying. He wipes the tears away, waves a careless hand to dry the ink and places the journal in his desk drawer. 

He takes in a few deep breaths that he does not need, but that he finds comforting regardless, closing his eyes against the wave of tears that threatens to well up again.

He is a Principality, a warrior, and helped end the Apocalypse.

None of these words describe the truth of him, though, the raw, unvarnished, exposed parts of himself that he wraps in layers of cotton, silk and velvet, hidden from everyone behind a mask of kindness.

Crowley is kindness itself, underneath his snarls and dark clothes that Aziraphale knows full well he only wears for the aesthetic. Aziraphale is kindness on the outside, unassuming and mild-mannered. This is the aesthetic he has cultivated carefully for himself, moulding it with careful hands to hide the rotten apple core of him, the worm of his horrible truth, that he is cruel, that he is truly unworthy of anything good in his life. He was bred for battle, for harshness and vicious bloodshed. It is all he is capable of. He can turn it into a protective instinct, and he can use those sharp edges against those who deserve it, but a sword does not care if you are a good person, its purpose is to hurt those who get too close. 

But he will not be ungrateful for the good he does have. The bookshop, his life on Earth, the Earth itself, and Crowley. He can be grateful. 

He just hopes he will not make another mess of it and anger Crowley by actually uttering the words.

***

Crowley has never admitted to crying except on one previous occasion - when he thought Aziraphale had been destroyed during the whole Armaged-Oh-Never-Mind debacle. 

He has cried before. Mostly over children killed before their prime, senselessly, and especially by Aziraphale’s former side. He cried right before he had to leave Warlock. He cried himself into a century long nap after Aziraphale called their Arrangement (friendship, who was he kidding) “fraternizing”, and he had definitely cried when he had Fallen. Not that he would admit it, because he is a terrifying demon, dammit. 

But he is definitely crying now. He and Aziraphale had been in the process of clearing out Aziraphale’s mostly unused flat above the shop. Aziraphale was sorting through the books in the living room area i.e. discovering books he’d forgotten he had and re-reading them cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by piles of dusty tomes. Crowley had made his way into the bedroom to see if there was anything worth keeping, donating or selling. He had found the deed to the shop in the desk tucked away in the corner, alongside some old correspondence between Aziraphale and Oscar Wilde. He’d had to resist the urge not to set the damn things on fire at the sight of the suggestive, flirtatious words on the paper. He knew full well that Aziraphale had only flirted with Wilde, and that it had never gone anywhere physical. 

Underneath all of that, he had found a very old journal. Being that Crowley could not leave well enough alone and was incredibly nosy by nature when it came to anything involving the angel, he had opened it. 

He almost wished he hadn’t. As an angel, Aziraphale was attuned to positive emotions - happiness, love, friendship, etc. As a demon, Crowley was the exact opposite. He was attuned to anger, grief and heartache, though these things were often too depressing for him to deal with on top of all those emotions he generated himself and so he had turned those senses off many years ago. 

He had never been more grateful to his past self for that decision because if the words written on the yellowing paper were any indication as to the emotional state of the writer, he imagined he would be picking up on so much heartache, longing and self-loathing that he would need to reach for that bottle of emergency bottom-shelf tequila he kept in Aziraphale’s back room for safekeeping and chug the entire thing like he was competing for the title of “Most Shitfaced” at a fraternity party. 

He had always wanted to punch Gabriel in his stupid smug face, and that feeling had only intensified when he had gone to Heaven to take Aziraphale’s “execution” and Gabriel had invited him to “shut your stupid mouth and die already”. Given the tone, Crowley-as-Aziraphale had imagined it was not the worst thing Gabriel had said to Aziraphale, but had no time to devote to the idea, as he had been too busy striking terror into the angels, which he had relayed to Aziraphale with mutual glee. 

He certainly has his answer now. And he has never wanted to comfort his angel more. How could anyone other than Aziraphale have dealt with more than six thousand years of pure condescension, ridicule and outright abuse so gracefully? Crowley knew that Aziraphale was an anxious angel, but he had always assumed that was just his personality, just as his secret bastard side was. It was clear now that for all Aziraphale talking about what a coward he was in his journal, he had been fighting another war, where he had emerged, more or less, as true to himself as he had ever been. As far as Crowley was concerned, Aziraphale had won that war. But this journal had made it abundantly clear that there had still been casualties in that war, and Aziraphale had not emerged unscathed. 

He rises from his seat and runs to find Aziraphale where he expects to find him - cross legged on the floor, sans coat, the sleeves of his powder-blue shirt rolled up to his elbows, and reading a dusty book he couldn’t see the title of. 

“Angel?” He croaks. 

Aziraphale looks up with a small smile of contentment, which melts off his face very quickly as he takes stock of Crowley. 

“Crowley, what in the world...” his voice trails off as he catches sight of the journal still clutched in Crowley’s hand. “Ah,” the angel’s voice is now a whisper, a dust mote in the air.

“You idiot,” Crowley drops the journal, his hands shaking at his sides. Aziraphale makes no move to pick it up. “You absolute blessed idiot. How dare you?” 

Aziraphale’s stormsea eyes are stricken and confused. 

“How could you never tell me how afraid they were of you? How afraid they made you? How much they hurt you and made you hate yourself? And how dare you take the choice of loving you back away from me?” Crowley is still crying, but his voice is quiet, the calm after a storm, somehow more devastating than the storm itself. 

Aziraphale is a marble statue, his eyes wide and staring at Crowley as though seeing him again for the first time on the Eastern Wall of Eden. 

“You said ‘I gave it away.’ It took four fucking words for me to fall in love with you, you idiot, but with every blessed rise and fall of the Sun, I have chosen to love you. There’s nothing you could say or do that would get me to change that decision. The first Fall was my worst ever choice, but falling for you? I’ll never want to change that decision, not ever. Best fucking choice ever. And for the record, loving you is not a burden or a chore, it is a fucking privilege to be friends with you, let alone be in love with you. You’re the only worthwhile angel that Heaven ever churned out, and you chose to be my friend and, if this journal is right, you chose to love me too. Fuck, Aziraphale, who needs Her blessings when I have you?” 

Aziraphale gasps and shudders as though Crowley’s words are a fist burying itself in his diaphragm, his eyes filling with tears. Crowley finds that harder to bear than the knowledge he has gained of Aziraphale today and he picks his way through the books to pull Aziraphale to his feet and wrap his arms around the love of his very long life.

Aziraphale cries softly into Crowley’s shoulder, his own trembling arms wrapping around Crowley easily. Crowley buries his face into Aziraphale’s hair, inhaling the scent of the faintly spicy cologne Aziraphale has worn for several years. It has always calmed Crowley, in the same way the smell of old books, Earl Grey tea and baked goods has calmed the demon. All scents, he has come to realize, that are associated with the angel shaking in his arms. 

“You are the best fucking thing this whole universe has to offer, bar none,” Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale’s ear. Aziraphale shudders, and Crowley doesn’t know if it’s because he is so close to the angel or because of his words, but he files this reaction away to re-examine at a later date. “You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed of, just as you are. Everyone who’s ever made you feel lesser than can burn to ashes for all I care. As can that journal, because it’s a very biased account of you, and I won’t tolerate anyone talking shit about you, yourself included,”

Aziraphale sobs a laugh into Crowley’s chest, nuzzling it a little. Crowley’s heart is a glowing ember. He presses his lips to Aziraphale’s crown, not quite a kiss, just a gentle presence, a reminder that the angel, for all his anxiety, has never been alone since that first rainstorm on the wall. 

“Crowley,” Crowley has always loved the many ways Aziraphale has said his name. But this time, he sounds as though Crowley’s name is a prayer, a sacred thing, something to be revered and worshipped in a way that the demon feels wholly unworthy of. Crowley hopes the angel will say that way again, but files the memory away for lonelier nights, just in case.

“You write beautifully, angel, but you wield words better than any sword,” 

“I never knew you were a poet, darling,” 

Darling. Crowley files this away too, thinking that he may have to create a whole mental database devoted to New Things Aziraphale Does That Crowley May Or May Not Wank To Later. He’s more preoccupied with the relief that Aziraphale is sounding both touched and tart at once. “Well, both of us influenced Shakespeare and several other writers, they had to get it from somewhere,”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a more backhanded compliment,”

“It’s not meant to be backhanded, it’s meant to convey how good you are with words, especially when you want to hurt yourself,” Crowley says with a fondness that can only be developed after six thousand years of loving someone.

Aziraphale stiffens in his arms, and Crowley immediately scrolls through his own mental transcript to figure out what he’d said wrong before Aziraphale speaks. “Or someone I care about,” the angel whispers, the words swirling over Crowley in the way smoke or silk scarves do. Crowley steps back a little in order to take Aziraphale’s wet face in his hands.

“Don’t kid yourself, angel, you didn’t do that because you’re a bastard, you did that to keep us safe from those wankers. I could have spun it with my ex-side, told them I was trying to corrupt the only angel assigned to Earth, they’d have bought it, but any association with me would have put us both at risk from Above. I knew that, and yeah, rejection hurt, but the hurt didn’t last very long, not when I knew full well how you felt,”

“You…you knew?”

“Angel, you knew too, neither of us know the meaning of subtlety. Well, we do know the literal meaning, we’ve been around a while, but we aren’t good at being subtle. I knew we loved each other, and that you have been protecting us from ourselves for thousands of years because deep down, you were waiting for this moment,”

Aziraphale looks at him in confusion.

“Where both of us are emotionally overwrought and crying?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. 

“Where both of us don’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves anymore,” he explains slowly. He looks down at Aziraphale with a very serious expression, one that Aziraphale does not see very often. “Any of them come near you again, especially with that pretentiously named torture device, I’ll raze ‘em to ash, that’s a fuckin’ promise,”

Aziraphale’s lips quirk into a smile, seemingly in spite of himself. “You certainly know how to sweep someone off their feet, dearest,”

Crowley grins, feeling the weight of the conversation lift just a little. This is how they are, not dismissing their pain, but lightening it by sharing, by finding humour in the trauma so that they aren’t a crying mess all the time. “I’ve seen what books you read when you think I’m not looking, angel, why do you think I’ve made a habit out of rescuing you?”

Aziraphale makes a mock-offended face and slaps Crowley’s shoulder lightly, causing the demon to burst out laughing and move his hands down to Aziraphale’s waist. 

“My hero,” Aziraphale says, only half teasing, his ever-changing eyes bright and earnest now, a lighthouse in the darkness. 

“Well, you do enough for everyone in the world, Aziraphale. Who protects Earth’s protector?” Crowley’s mouth is soft in its smile, a gentle thing that reveals the truth of its owner. 

Aziraphale cannot help himself and leans up, pressing his own smile to Crowley’s. 

All his doubts, all his insecurities, all his fears. Crowley continues to be his knight, chasing away the dragons that have plagued Aziraphale all of his life. Aziraphale whimpers into Crowley’s mouth in sheer relief and joy and breathless wonder and _yespleasemore_ and _adoreyouworshipyouloveyou_.

It feels like freedom.

It feels like letting go.

It feels like a new world.

**Author's Note:**

> Anything you recognize doesn't belong to me. Crowley, Aziraphale and the world of Good Omens belongs to Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett, I'm just borrowing them.
> 
> I hope you're all staying safe and inside during this troubled time in our world. I'm finding it difficult to cope, myself. My mental health hasn't been this bad in years, and I'm trying very hard to be gentle with myself. But I know there are others out there who are having a harder time of it, and I do want to help. My inbox is always available if you ever need to talk. I'm not comfortable sharing my social media on here, but if you DM me on here wanting to vent, we can arrange something. Love and light to all of you - as hard as it is to believe at the moment, we will get through this.


End file.
